
Title 



Book ^5lb. 

.L6 



Imprint 



Jli— !S<tt99-!. GPO 




^r> D R E 8 S 



DELIVEKED BY 



Hon. SETH LOV^T, 

AT 

GETTYSBURG, OCTOBER 19, 1887, 

AT THE 

DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, 

TO THE 

FOURTEENTH REGIMENT OF BROOKLYN. 

Henkt Besset, Printer, No. 47 Cedar Street, New-Tork. 



B'i-IS 



(9 






A. D D R E S S 

DELIVERED AT 

GETTYSBURG, OCTOBER 19, 1887, 



DEDICATION OF THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, 

TO THE 

FOURTEENTH REGIMENT OF BROOKLYN. 



YETERAisrs of the Brooklyn Fourteenth, Widows and 
Wives and Daughters of Veterans, you who endured at 
home, while those whom you loved dared everything at 
the front, Members of the Regiment, Gentlemen of the 
Brooklyn City Grovernment, and Fellow-citizens : 

Standing here at Gettysburg, we seem to be standing 
on one of the mountain- tops of history. Cemetery 
Ridge is but a little eminence, yet from its consecrated 
summit the eye commands a vision wider and more 
wonderful than any to be seen from the loftiest Sierra. 
Here, looking backwards, we seem to see not alone the 
nation's past, spreading beneath us like a map, but out 
of the shadowy distance we seem to see, converging 
here, the multitudinous roads along which men have 
struggled, during all the ages, towards the conception 
of a free State, existing for and maintained by a free 
people. Here, looking forwards, "the distance beacons " 
to a glowing future, bright with hope for the multitudes 



of men. Not in vain have they fonght and died whose 
fortunate mission it was to interpret the past and to 
bless the future. 

Neither does it lack significance that this battle 
should have been fought on the soil of Pennsylvania. 
The popular faculty, which so often gives names with a 
deep insight into the real significance of things, long 
ago called Pennsylvania the Keystone State. Histori- 
cally, no less than geographically, the name applies. 
In the majestic arch formed by this Union of independent 
States, Pennsylvania always has been the keystone. 
Upon the soil of Pennsylvania met the first and the 
second Continental Congress. Upon the soil of Pennsyl- 
vania, George Washington was commissioned Commander 
in Chief of the Continental Armies. Upon the soil of 
Pennsylvania was made the immortal Declaration of In- 
dependence. Upon the soil of Pennsylvania the Liberty 
Bell first of all rang out the joyful peal of liberty through- 
out the land. It was here that Franklin drew lightning 
from the sky, and it was here were forged the thunder- 
bolts which made the Colonies independent States. 
Again, at Gettysburg, in our own generation, were 
hurled the bolts which have made the Union free. 

The Civil War, in which the battle of Gettysburg 
was the turning point, became inevitable when the 
Constitution of the United States recognized and per- 
mitted slavery within our borders. Whatever other 
issues of constitutional interpretation were involved, 
they all hinged upon slavery, as that which gave to 
them all their chief meaning and consequence. At the 
outbreak of the war men did not see this clearly, as they 
see it now. The preservation of the Union was the 
rallying cry ; and men said it oftentimes without at all 
realizing how grand a cry it was. The preservation of 
the Union by no possibility could involve only the life 
of the nation. It involved necessarily the freedom of a 
race and the best hopes of mankind. Without slavery 




■ti^ri^i 



the national life never would have been in danger. 
Without the abolition of slavery the preservation of the 
Union was a dream. Yet the war began with the most 
emphatic declarations that slavery should not be dis- 
turbed. In the beginning, one hundred years ago, the 
Fathers admitted slavery into the Constitution, because 
without it the Union could not have been formed. For 
seventy years, compromise after compromise was made 
with reference to slavery, for the preservation of the 
Union, in the vain hope of preserving a political fabric 
undisturbed, which had within itself forces as antagonis- 
tic as light and darkness. At last it was open war, and 
defeat followed defeat for the soldiers of the Union, until 
it became certain that the Union, when preserved, would 
be a Union wholly free. At Gettysburg were discerned, 
for the first time, the faint beginnings of the longed-for 
end. Here were pronounced at last, to the wild, swelling 
waves of slavery's great sea, the words of Omnipotence, 
"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." 

Most fittingly, the army through which this decree 
was uttered was the Army of the Potomac. For two 
long, weary years that magnificent body of soldiers 
had endured defeat and disaster. Not always being 
worsted in isolated encounters, they still were exposed 
constantly to the most trying of all military experi- 
ences, where defeat brought disaster and victory 
brought small advantage. Still, though defeated often, 
they were invincible. 

" Trampled and beaten were ttey as the sand, 
And yet unshaken as the Continent." 

Commanders there have been sometimes, who, by 
their overpowering genius, have led their conquering 
legions without a defeat from the first small victory to 
the complete triumph. Others, again, after a career of 
dazzling success, have marched to humiliating over- 
throw. Still others, by their intrepidity and unyielding 



courage, have lield their shattered troops about them^ 
until despair turned into victory. But I can think of 
no other case where the army was of itself superior to 
the fate of its leaders. Commanders might come and 
commanders might go, but the Army of the Potomac 
could not be beaten. It could not, indeed, subdue its 
enemy, until a leader worthy of itself was at its head, 
but that enemy dashed itself in vain against its heroic 
columns until, under the lead of the great Commander, 
the Army of the Potomac ground even its valiant 
antagonist to powder. 

Here, at Gettysburg, the tide of war began to turn. 
The presence of these regimental monuments, in large 
numbers, reveals the popular recognition that this, in a 
sense peculiar to itself, was the pivotal battle of the 
war. Step with me for a moment to yonder cemetery, 
" where the bones of heroes rest." There you shall, 
see the graves of men from eighteen of our States, from 
Maine, on the East, to Minnesota, on the West. Side 
by side with the graves over whose heads the name of 
their State appears, breathing, as it were, a benison from 
home, you shall see almost one thousand graves of the 
nameless dead; Comrades, how hard it seems ! To die 
for one's country; to yield this last full measure of a 
patriot's devotion ; and not even to have it known that 
you have died ! Not known ; not known, indeed, here, 
but well known, I like to think, by Him who seeth in 
secret that He may reward openly. 

Y ou may have heard the anecdote of the Southern man 
who saw the great review of the Union armies in Wash- 
ington at the end of the war. As the troops went 
marching by, carrying the banners of Michigan, Wis- 
consin, Iowa, Minnesota, the regimental numbers indi- 
cating the multitudes of soldiers that had come from all 
these States, he rubbed his eyes, and asked where those 
States were. When he had studied geography, he 
said, there were no such States. Soon he identified 



them as part of the Northwest Territory and its neigh- 
borhood, when he uttered this reflection : " If we could 
but have known — if we could but have known." The 
sagacity of Jefferson, he saw, in dedicating to Freedom 
in 1787 this great Northwest Territory, after all had 
brought to naught in the end the slavery permitted in 
the Constitution. But if the new States did their part 
heroically, the old States were equally worthy of their 
traditions and their history. Yonder cemetery contains 
more men from the State of New- York than from any 
other State, and through the war she maintained her 
primacy. The other day I was in the Adirondacks, 
and in the little town of Keene, with its few hundreds 
of population, I found a Grand Army post numbering 
still 39 members. So they came from the hillside and 
from the plain, from the forest and from the open, and 
so, with equal devotion, they came from the great cities 
of the State. The official records show that from 
Brooklyn over 32,000 men went to the front, and the 
Brooklyn of that day was a city of little more than 
200,000 people. Among this number the first to enlist, 
and the equal of any regiment in either army in gallantry 
and heroic service, was the regiment in whose honor this 
monument is erected. While known, also, as the 84th 
New- York State Volunteers, it always has been best 
known and best loved as the Brooklyn 14th. For this 
reason, and by reason of its permanency as a militia 
regiment, both before and since the war, it has come to 
be looked upon as the typical Brooklyn War regiment. 
Never did city have a grander regiment upon which to 
bestow its affection and its pride. The fateful shot at 
Sumter went hurling through the frightened air on the 
12th of April, 1861. Just six days thereafter report 
was made to headquarters that the 14th Regiment was 
in readiness to be marched to the front ! This was its 
answer to the call for volunteers — prompt, courageous^ 
patriotic. It meant business. When on the way to 
Washington the Colonel, then Alfred M. Wood, received 



6 

a despatch from the Governor of New- York, asking 
him by what authority he had taken his regiment out 
of the State without orders. Colonel Wood replied : 
" By authority of Abraham Lincoln, President of the 
" United States, and we hope with your approval." 
This reply suggests the remark which Lincoln himself 
is said to have made to Secretary Chase at about the 
same period. "These rebels are violating the Consti- 
" tution to destroy the Union. I will violate the Con- 
" stitution, if necessary, to save the Union." It needed 
no prophet to foretell that such a regiment would acquit 
itself with honor. It began its fighting at Bull Run. 
There Colonel Wood was wounded and taken prisoner. 
Colonel Wood's wound disabled him for further service, 
even after he was exchanged, and from that time the 
regiment fought under the command of our gallant and 
modest friend, Colonel Fowler, except for a brief period 
after the second battle of Ball Run, in which engage- 
ment Colonel Fowler also was seriously wounded. 
During this interval the Regiment was commanded 
by Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Debevoise. Colonel 
Wood's experiences as a prisoner were exceptional. 
About that time some Confederate privateersmen had 
been made prisoners, and it was proposed by some that 
they should be treated as pirates. In response to this 
proposition the Confederate authorities took Colonel 
Wood and others and held themas hostages in the County 
jail. Others of the regiment, officers and men, found 
themselves in Libby Prison. I have been much struck, 
in reading a letter from one of this number, with the 
dreariness of a military prisoner's life. Leaving aside 
all questions of cruelty, the monotony and weariness of 
it must have been almost beyond endurance to men full 
of vigor. 

I wish to pay my tribute of grateful honor to the he- 
roism which suffered in this form, no less than to the 
gallantry which on field after field dared every chance 
of war. Soon most of these first prisoners were ex- 



changed, and one can well imagine the scene when they 
found themselves once more under the Stars and Stripes. 
Of both those who were released and those who welcomed 
them, the contemporary account says, "every eye was 
dim with tears." So quickly did the Brooklyn Four- 
teenth sound the whole deep meaning of that horrid 
word, war. 

When Col. Wood found himself free, and within the 
Union lines again, the regiment was in camp near 
Washington. He repaired at once to his command to 
receive their congratulations upon his release. " The 
regiment appeared," so says the chronicler, " in the 
' peculiar chasseur dress for which it has become 
' famous — the red i)ants, dark blue jacket, with two 
' rows of bell buttons, and red breast-piece, having 
' also a row of bell buttons, and red cap." " Col. 
' Wood assured the boys that they had established at 
' Manassas a reputation which they might well strive 
' to maintain, ' for,' said he, ' you are the dread of the 
' enemy.' " " Everywhere he had been assured by 
' Confederate officers that his regiment, the ' red legs,' 
' had fought more desperately than any other at the 
' field of Bull Run." This testimony is supported by 
the praise the regiment received from the Union Com- 
mander, by whom it was named, with special mention, 
in Greneral Orders. Thus, its first battle found the 
regiment already the " fighting Fourteenth." I do not 
propose to follow the regiment from field to field, but I 
do desire at this time, as matter of historical record, to 
name the different engagements in which the regiment 
took part : 



1. 


Bull Run. 


6. 


Sulphur Springs. 


2. 


Binn'sHill. 


7. 


Gainesville. 


3. 


Falmouth. 


8. 


Groveton. 


4. 


Spottsylvania, Aug. '62. 


9. 


Manassas Plains 


5. 


Rappahannock Station. 


10. 


Chantilly. 



11. 


South Mountain. 


17. 


Seminary Hill, 


12. 


Antietam. 


18. 


Gettysburg. 


13. 


Fredericksburg. 


19. 


Mine Run. 


14. 


Port Royal. 


20. 


Wilderness. 


15. 


Fitzhugli Crossing. 


21. 


Laurel Hill. 


16. 


Chancellorsville. 


22. 


Spottsylvania. 



A roll of honor long enough and splendid enough to 
satisfy the greatest caviler. 

From contemporary newspaper accounts sent to the 
journals of other cities than Brooklyn, which I quote 
as presumably impartial, as also by extracts from the 
official records, I am able to show, in a measure, how 
the regiment appeared at the time in the eyes of others. 

Here is an item touching their services at Fredericks- 
burg : " The brilliant feat of the Brooklyn Fourteenth 
"in keeping up, without straggling, with the Cavalry and 
" Artillery on a march of twenty-six miles, during the 
" hottest day of the season, and then, with but three 
" hours' rest, dashing on after the enemy's cavalry for 
" four miles, is the subject of most flattering en- 
" comiums." 

The regiment led the advance at the capture of Fred- 
ericksburg by Uen. Augur. After the battle had been 
fought " anxiety was manifested," so reads the record, 
" to know by whom the 14th Regiment of Brooklyn 
" was led during the gallant advance upon the town." 

I need not tell you, men of the Fourteenth, that it was 
led then, as so often on other fields, with equal bravery 
and skill, by Col. E. B. Fowler, since General by brevet 
for his services during the war. In the spring of 
1863, Gen. Reynolds, that superb fighter, issued a 
special order, thanking the Brooklyn 14 th and the 24th 
Michigan, for their splendid services ,on the expedition 
to Port Royal. At South Mountain and Antietam, 
when under the command of Lieut. -Col. Debevoise, the 
regiment signalized itself as usual by its brilliant 



9 

<}liarges. And so we come with, them to Gettysburg. 
It was their fortune to be with Gen. Reynolds in the 
heavy fighting of the first day, when a fragment of the 
Union Army held the great body of Confederates in 
€heck, until the Union forces could be brought up in 
sufiicient numbers to make a successful stand on Cem- 
etery Ridge. They were among the first, if not them- 
selves the first, to begin the infantry fighting of that 
memorable struggle. • 

The sad duty fell to them of removing from the field 
the body of the heroic Reynolds, when he fell directly 
behind their lines. Nothing daunted even by this dis- 
aster, they added lustre to their already glorious record. 
They h.eld their ground until flanked, and then, falling 
back and changing front, all the time under fire, they, 
in company with the 95th New- York and the 6th 
Wisconsin, all under command at the moment of Col. 
Fowler, drove back the enemy in their front, Davis' 
Mississippi brigade, and upon this ground where we 
now stand compelled a large part of them to surrender. 
It is recorded that they took more prisoners here than 
the regiments engaged had men. Thus you will see this 
is indeed the proper spot upon which to place the monu- 
ment we have dedicated to-day. The life blood of many 
of our brothers has enriched the underlying soil ; the 
wounded in their agony have here looked up in prayer 
to the bending sky ; and here the blessings of a grateful 
nation have descended upon the brows of the living and 
4;he dead. 

" Whene'er a noble deed is wrought. 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 
Our hearts, in glad surprise. 
To higher levels rise. 

" The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls, 
And lifts us unawares 
Out of all meaner cares." 



10 

To commemorate and to perpetuate the memory of 
not one but many such noble deeds, this monument to 
the 14th Regiment of Brooklyn is dedicated to-day, by 
the survivors of the Regiment, by their comrades and 
friends, by the grateful State of New- York, and by their 
fellow- citizens of Brooklyn, Still, let it be remembered, 
that the services of the 14th Regiment at Gettysburg 
were not confined to the fighting about this railroad 
cut. On the second day, and on the third, they engaged 
the enemy in the vicinity of Gulp's Hill. After dark of 
the second day they were proceeding to position to re- 
inforce Gen. Greene on the right of our line, when Col. 
Fowler was surprised to receive fire from a position 
within our lines which he supposed to be held by Union 
troops. Not being sure whether they were our own 
troops or the enemy, volunteers were called for to ascer- 
tain. One fell wounded, but one returned, reporting that 
it was the 10th Virginia. A volley from the Fourteenth 
caused the Virginia regiment to retire from the woods 
in which they were, and where they occupied a position 
in relation to our lines full of peril to our army. Thus, 
through small incidents and through great, the battle 
raged until the Union forces were everywhere success- 
ful. 

The loss of the 14th Regiment in the battle of Gettys- 
burg was 217, out of 356 officers and men engaged. 

A writer at the time to one of the New- York papers 
says: " The heroic and gallant 2d, 9th and 14tli Regi- 
ments, N. Y. S. N. G., have been almost wiped out of 
existence in the recent bloody conflicts on the soil of 
Pennsylvania and Maryland. There remains but a 
small band of them now ; but oh what scenes of courage 
has that handful of veterans lived through. Always in 
the front, fearless and unflinching, they have stood 
where the havoc of war raged the wildest, and passed 
on through fire and sword into the enemy's works. No 
regulars that ever served on any field have won more 



11 

imperishable honor than these three regiments of militia. 
Had a Napoleon lived and seen their deeds of daring, 
he would have chosen them for his Imperial Guard." 

And these men of the 14th Regiment, gentlemen, were 
our neighbors and friends. 

After Grettysburg, the Fourteenth served until the 22d 
May, 1864, taking heroic part, as always, in all the 
battles down to and including the battle of Spottsyl- 
vania, in the famous Wilderness Campaign. 

It was their singular honor to be the first regiment to 
receive General Grant when, as Commander in Chief, he 
Joined the Army of the Potomac. I quote the following 
record of this period from the report of Colonel Fowler. 
"Although the time of the Fourteenth had nearly 
expired, the men stood the brunt of battle nobly. Not 
a case of desertion occurred, and but little murmuring. 
Many a brave spirit winged its flight heavenward, who, 
in the body, had counted the days that would elapse ere 
he would be in the embrace of dear ones at home." 

AWashington correspondent writes, under date of May 
24,1864 : "The 14th Brooklyn Regiment, Colonel Fowler, 
arrived here to-day from the front, and left to-night for 
New- York. Of 2,100 men it has had in the service, but 
91 officers and men return— a sad, but glorious commen- 
tary upon its achievements." 

Well might the City of Brooklyn welcome it with 
every honor. "Welcome, the brave Fourteenth, out of 
the Wilderness !" 

The regiment, having enlisted for three years, returned 
home, thin enough indeed in ranks, but full of honors. 
About one hundred men, who had become members of the 
regiment at various dates, and whose terms of service 
had not yet expired, were incorporated into the Fifth 
Regiment of New- York Veterans. Here they upheld 
their old credit with undiminished gallantry. Six, at 
least, became officers, two being promoted on the field 
of battle for bravery in action. The subsequent services 



12 

of these men, no less tlian the record of the regiment as- 
such, are lovingly commemorated by this monument. 
Circumstances prevented them from sharing in the 
triumphant return home of the regiment to whose glory 
they contributed so largely. It is fitting that at this 
hour glad recognition should be made of their services, 
and that they should be claimed by Brooklyn as an 
integral portion of her famous fighting regiment. 

Now, four and twenty years after the mighty struggle 
of Gettysburg, we are gathered here, a handful of people 
out of the great multitudes of Brooklyn, to dedicate this 
monument to the Brooklyn Fourteenth. What does it 
signify? Abraham Lincoln said, in that marvelous ad- 
dress which he made in yonder cemetery, it was here decid- 
ed that "government of the people, by the people and for 
the people, should not perish from the earth." Certainly, 
then, the monument means this, by way of history, that 
in that august decision, weighty with far-reaching conse- 
quences on both sides the great sea, and in every quarter 
of the globe, the 14th Regiment, and through them the 
City of Brooklyn, bore glorious part. 

Who shall presume to say what the monument means 
to you who are veterans of the regiment ? To you, and 
indeed to us, the spot whereon we stand is holy ground. 
Around and about us are similar monuments marking^ 
the fidelity and heroism of other men. But, to you, 
this monument has a sacred significance all its own. It 
tells you of comrades who were not afraid to die. It 
tells you of comrades who were not afraid to live, rob- 
bed of their health, crippled in limb, the wrecks of the 
men who went with you to the front. It tells you of 
yourselves, how that it is a sublime thing at such a time 
to have been true and brave. 

But what shall the monument mean to me, and to 
others like me, who have come to manhood since the 
war, to all who, being non-participants in the fighting, 
have yet shared in the glorious results ? What would 



13 

you have it mean to us, you who here for our sakes 
looked in the eyes of death and were not afraid? 
Speaking for myself, and for the generation to which I 
belong, we stand in your presence with uncovered 
heads. We give you, with full hearts, the meed of 
gratitude and of glory that men have given, always, to 
those who have fought their battles. We look upon 
you, and ujDon such as you, with a touch of reverence, as 
upon those who havfe preserved all that as citizens of 
this great, free land, we hold most dear. God grant 
that the record of your deeds, and the memory of your 
self-sacrifices, may inspire us, and all your fellow- citi- 
zens, with a patriotic devotion to the country we all 
love so well. May the power of your example never 
die, but wax stronger and stronger with the growing 
years. But beyond all this, what would you have us 
young men say of the war in which you fought 1 And 
what shall we say of the men against whom you fought ? 
Certainly let us say this, in any presence, that you 
fought for the right and that they foiight for the wrong. 
But would you have us speak of the war only as a rebel- 
lion ? Shall it seem to us only a causeless and wicked 
war, brought about for their owd purposes by design- 
ing and ambitious men 1 "It must needs be that oifences 
come, but woe unto that man by whom the offence 
cometh." So shall we not rather admit, with the can- 
dor of truth, that the seeds of the war may be traced 
back to the Constitution itself, to that Constitution 
which, in the words of Fitz Hugh Lee the other day, 
as he sorrowfully said, permitted slavery, and was 
silent as to the right of secession ? I bring no charge 
against the framers of the Constitution. They did 
their part, and they were in nothing more wise than 
in not attempting to do what was beyond their power. 
The attempt to settle these questions then would have 
made the Union impossible. They rightly Judged that 
if they could make the Constitution of the nation 



14 

sound and strong, it would of itself cast out whatever was 
hostile to its life. And is not this what happened, and 
are not these the questions which you have decided 
once for all upon the supreme appeal to arms, you later 
Constitution-makers, fellow laborers with the fathers, 
Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Madison, 
and all their goodly company ? If this be so, if this be 
the view that placid History will take when she comes 
to record, with imjDartial pen, the story of these stirring 
years, then may not we, your countrymen and theirs, 
casting away all bitterness, rejoice that we are once 
more fellow-citizens with them as well as with you, in a 
Union so much stronger and better than it was before ? 
And, indeed, my countrymen, let us thank G-od that it 
is so. " Government of the people, by the people and 
for the people," was not more strengthened by your 
victory than it was by the re-admission into all their 
rights as fellow-citizens of those who had been your 
foes. Without this crowning triumph your victory 
would have been meaningless. Had this been impos- 
sible, the Union would have perished on the same held 
where your enemies surrendered. But now are we all 
called, they as well as we, to make the renewed Union 
more glorious than before. Out of the war, unques- 
tionably, has S])rung a material growth and develop- 
ment unimagined in the earlier years. Out of the war, 
let a profounder faith in the whole people grow, and a 
deeper sense of fellowship between man and man ! We 
need that faith and that fellowship every hour. Popu- 
lar government rests, at all times, upon a just faith in 
the people, and upon their capacity for self-sacrifice, a ca- 
pacity which expresses itself sometimes in self-restraint, 
sometimes in self -surrender. The civil war was the crown- 
ing effort of our people's self-surrender. Cheerfully, un- 
grudgingly, both sides marched to the front, facing death 
without a murmur. Cheerfully, ungrudgingly, they laid 
upon themselves a burden of taxation such as no tyrant 



15 

"would Lave dared to impose. Cheerfully, ungrudgingly, 
each have borne all the sad consequences of the conflict, 
until together they have come out into the brighter day. 
For such a people all things are possible while they re- 
tain the spirit of the men of the mighty generation to 
which you belong. This monument is Brooklyn's 
tribute to that spirit as it showed itself at Glettysburg. 
It shall speak to us not so much of strife as of conse- 
cration, not so much -of death as of life, not so much of 
suffering as of glory, not so much of loss as of gain. 
May it speak always to willing ears. To-night, com- 
rades and fellow- citizens, we leave this consecrated spot 
and return to our distant home. But we leave it, not as 
it has been, eloquent only to the few who knew its 
story. We leave behind us this beautiful memorial of 
our admiration and our love, a happiness to our own 
hearts and an inspiration to all others who shall pass 
this way. 



JoA' 



:yW'-_ 






X 



